Senate Republicans seem far more upset about Donald Trump’s tariffs than they do about Trump’s family separation policy, though most Republicans remain unwilling to challenge Trump even when faced with something so much more troubling than traumatized children. “Not a party meeting goes by these days where multiple Republicans don’t vent that the president isn’t listening to them—and plot how to fight back,” Politico’s Burgess Everett reports.
Again, they are venting and plotting about tariffs, not children ripped from their parents’ arms.
“I’d like to kill ’em,” groused Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a close Trump ally, referring to the administration’s expanding list of tariffs.
Senate Republicans are talking seriously about limiting Trump’s power to impose tariffs, with Sens. Bob Corker and Pat Toomey trying to attach one plan to do that as an amendment on every bill that comes to the Senate floor. While they’ve been unsuccessful so far, they have Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s support.
Even some seriously Trumpist Republicans are feeling the strain—of tariffs, not children in cages.
“We want to support the president, my constituents want to support the president as well. But they can only keep that stiff upper lip before things collapse,” [Iowa Sen. Joni] Ernst said. “We’re not quite at that point but it’s rapidly approaching.”
To be fair, Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time when it comes to imposing poorly thought through policies. But it sure is interesting to see how upset Republicans are about a trade policy that, though Trump is implementing it recklessly, could be a good move in competent and responsible hands, while they remain calm about a moral outrage being committed against children and families.